This seemed nothing short of a calamity to Anne.

Never, since the night on which Minnie May had had the croup, had she and Diana been separated in anything.

On the evening when the Queen's class first remained in school for the extra lessons and Anne saw Diana go slowly out with the others, to walk home alone through the Birch Path and Violet Vale, it was all the former could do to keep her seat and refrain from rushing impulsively after her chum.

A lump came into her throat, and she hastily retired behind the pages of her uplifted Latin grammar to hide the tears in her eyes.

Not for worlds would Anne have had Gilbert Blythe or Josie Pye see those tears.
"But, oh, Marilla, I really felt that I had tasted the bitterness of death, as Mr.Allan said in his sermon last Sunday, when I saw Diana go out alone," she said mournfully that night.